Happy 25th Birthday to the Renegades

Happy 25th Birthday to the Renegades and happy birthday to the USA.  I’m writing this article on Patriots day weekend thinking about a big milestone the Renegades have hit.  The red coats are here and there are huge celebrations going on for the 250th year anniversary of our country.  As the country turns 250, the Renegades turn 25 years old!

When we started back in 2000, nobody would’ve imagined this team would still be plugging 25 years later. But here we are. Our success is due to so many of the players and coaches who have built a foundation and a culture that defines winning by more than wins and losses.  We need to celebrate because what we have accomplished is very rare in the NBBA.

The Eight NBBA teams to exist for 25 years

The league started in 1976 and is missing some of its historical stats making its history slightly hard to follow.  In our time in the NBBA, we have played 46 different teams in NBBA competition.  There has been another 8 teams who came to the World Series who we haven’t played during our time in the league (excluding the teams in Taiwan).  According to former President, Jerry Windell, there was roughly 35 teams between 1976-2000.  We know  32 of these teams have folded since we started. Pretty much every team prior to 2000 also no longer exists.  We believe there are only 8 teams who have survived 25 or more years in the 49 year history of the sport (with the Indy Thunder joining this list next year).  They include:

• Austin Blackhawks (1987- Current)
• Cleveland Scrappers (1987- Current)
• Tyler Tigers (1994- Current)
• Chicago Comets (1995- Current)
• Chicago Bluff (1978-2000, 2002-2005)
• Long Island Bombers (1988- Current)
• Boston Renegades (2000-Current)

We believe it’s likely the Renegades played more games than every team in league history other than just five teams. Bayou City, Chicago Comets, Austin, Cleveland and Indianapolis may be the only teams to have played more games than the Renegades in the past 49 years.  What makes the Renegade’s accomplishment even more amazing is the amount of travel required.  We have been to exactly one World Series where we could avoid airfare.  All but 25 of our 308 games in history have been on the road.  These other five teams are more clustered around cities with teams and have a more balanced travel schedule with less need to pay for airfare.

The Challenges of Running a Team

Running a beepball team is very hard.  It takes so much work, sweat, tears, blood and teamwork.  It requires resources that must be there year after year.  Those resources consist of players, money and volunteers. That sounds easy, but it’s not, and it’s given me gray hair, intestinal bleeds and many sleepless nights over the years.  Keep in mind most teams in the league are run by volunteers on people’s free time.  We are not paid employees.

A perfect example of this stress was in 2005. I wanted to find a new field for the team to use that was quiet, flat and near public transportation.  Every city I called turned us down for fear of liability.  Finally, our pitcher, Danny Cotter convinced a catholic school to let us use their facility.  Half way through that season, there was a misunderstanding and we were kicked off those fields….by nuns!  You can’t make this stuff up! We were nomads for the rest of the season often using fields hoping nobody would kick us off.

Finding Players

In 2000, Rob Weissman talks to John Oliveira about the game going on between Lowell and the Renegades

The first and most important resource is finding players.  In 2000, ABC gauged interest by polling the community to see who may be interested.  I’ve seen multiple organizations have funding, volunteers and incredible facilities, but not enough interest from the blind community to field a team. When I met John Oliveira in 2000, I’d been working with Bryan Grillo and Ron Cochran for a few months in Lowell. We had six blind players up there, but one, named Will, was injured all season because he accidentally dropped a pot of boiling water on his bare feet and had third degree burns.  With this injury, we only had 5 people who could participate and had to supplement that with a sighted person (often times Bryan Grillo) strapping on a blindfold.

John had an army of interested people that could field two teams.  One in Brookline and one in New Bedford.  I knew at that moment the level of interest he had generated, would be the key to getting this off the ground. However, It’s more complicated than this. Beepball is not an adults men’s softball team.  Most Bostonian blind adults have never heard of beepball till they find us.

This isn’t the same as putting together a softball team. In beepball, new participants need to learn the entire game. We’ve had players who have never run in their life before joining our squad. Also, one major misnomer is that all blind people can’t see anything.  Often times when we find a legally blind person who still navigates with their peripheral vision and we offer them a blind fold they immediately say, “no thank you” and walk away.  Just imagine if a brand new game was invented that you have never heard of or seen, would you commit to playing right away?  Would you drop money to play it out of the gate?  We need to teach them everything because they have no history, experience or knowledge of what will be required of them.

Supporting the Team Financially

Financial resources can also restrict many teams from having success. Our budgets have ranged from $10,000-$30,000 a year.  So much of that money is raised thru fundraising events, grants, sponsorships, donations and without it the travel and equipment would be impossible to acquire.  Much of this work is behind the scenes and takes hours to organize.

When this team started, most of the players could not afford the travel.  Some were unemployed.  Some were students.  I have been told multiple times that the national unemployment rate for blind people hovers near 70%.  If you’re out looking for people who have both the time and desire to play ball, the initial group who may be attracted are those who are not working, needing more financial help.  Then you have the issue of transportation which was more of an issue before Uber and Lyft came on the scene.  Often times, people may need help with rides and that often time requires more help from volunteers.

Finding Volunteers

Bryan Grillo takes the field with Steve from the Lowell LAB Retrievers in 2000 in Brookline

A beepball team needs dedicated volunteers as its third resource.  No team in this sport survives without a pitcher or defensive callers.  All teams need someone to drive and assist with practices.  This is one area where the Renegades have shined and likely exceeded every team in the league.  When we show up to the Beast of the East with 20 volunteers other teams often approach me with a congratulations and a knowledge we give this everything we have in Boston.  To help get the team off the ground, John actually paid a few volunteers to get them dedicated.  But in early 2003, he reconnected with me and we took an entirely different approach.  We got this back to being volunteer driven.

With my huge network of good people and sports fans, I worked hard to recruit people to join me on this journey.  Over the years, 19 of my friends, family members and even colleagues from work joined the team to help in some capacity.  They brought with them a love of sports and other skills to build this program.  Many of them had played sports with me and knew the passion I have for sport.  Heading into the 2025 season, the coaching staff has witnessed an influx of new people and we stand 25 strong heading into the season.  These volunteers stand in the rain and cold of the spring and the heat of the summer.  They come after work shifts and wake early in the morning to get to practice on their weekends.  They even help keep this going almost year round!

Making an Impact and changing lives

Ron Cochran puts on shin guards before going out to pitch in this 2000 scrimmage between the Renegades, Lowell and New Bedford

Once you have these resources, you need to create a culture that people want to be a part of.  We have been very fortunate over the years to have accomplished this!  But every year we need to restock all three areas of our resources.  Its tiring and repetitive at times.  Sometimes it feels thankless.  But in the end, we do it because it’s so rewarding.

Everyone on the Renegade loves to give people opportunity.  The team loves to celebrate new players and coaches coming to our team. We are always trying new things and have created our own brand of beep baseball.  We have created the Renegade way!  That ideology now enters its 25^th year.  Each and every Renegade should be proud of their contribution to making this happen.  When we started this thing, we were the first competitive team sport in all of New England for adults.  We have become one of the most successful Beepball franchises in the 49 years of the sport.

But our impact goes beyond the people wearing the uniform. We’ve run dozens of camps to expose blind kids to the sport.  We have held dozens of demonstrations for the sighted and blind community.  There has been hundreds and hundreds of people attending our games (come see us play locally and you will see some of the  biggest crowds in the NBBA).  Our social media presence is also arguably bigger than the league and has stretched across the globe.  Groups in Argentina, Africa, Puerto Rico, India and Canada have all leaned on us at times to learn the sport. Bottom line, we have reached thousands of people across the globe to make them aware of the “ability” in the word disability.

Fun Facts to celebrate our 25th Birthday

Anyone who knows the Renegade culture knows one of its roots is stats. To celebrate our 25 years, I thought it would be fun to share some fun stats

• The Renegades have played 307 official games (191-116)
• 53 different Players have appeared in at least one game with only one player not originating from our home grown roster. 46 of these players have played every game in their career for just the Renegades!
• 12 different volunteers have faced at least one batter in a game as a pitcher
• 22 different volunteers have gone on the field as spotters
• Rob Weissman has caught 23,975 pitches for 7,902 hitters in a game
• Ron Cochran has thrown 16,512 pitches to 5,692 hitters and in a game
• We have busted 38 balls in a game where the play was ruled a dead ball (costing $1,406)
• Our pitchers have been hit 116 times within a game by a batted ball
• 15 Renegades have played over 100 games and the average player in Renegade history has played 57 games
• The average player in team history has just over 6.5 years of experience. The 2025 team (excluding rookies) averages over 10 years of experience per player
• The current Renegade volunteer staff has more than 8 years of experience with 11 people holding 10+ years experience and six with 20+ years experience
• 91 different volunteers have worked at least a season with the Renegades
• 3 different Renegades have won MVP at the World Series (Guy Zuccarello, Christian Thaxton, Joe McCormick)
• The Renegades have had 7 different players named to a World Series All Star team 14 different times